Hit the road for a "One-Tank Trip" around Southern Ontario.
Adventures worth the drive from the syndicated newspaper/web column by Jim Fox

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Saturday, February 2, 2013

Celebrate the Chinese Year of the Water Snake with tour guide Shirley Lum

One-Tank Trip for
Feb. 2/13

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(c) By Jim Fox

Want to get lucky for
the Chinese lunar Year of the Water Snake?

Then exchange your
old bills for new ones at a bank, buy three kumquats with green twigs and tie
them with a red string or ribbon, and pick up some “lucky” pastries at a
Chinese bakery.

The Lion Dance to drive away evil spirits (Jim Fox photo)

So says Toronto
culinary historian Shirley Lum who operates a Taste the World Neighbourhood Walks including
a series of Chinese New Year’s Tours.

Also don’t forget, those
pastries should be wallet shaped, look like fire crackers and have smiling
faces.

It’s a good idea, too, to buy three
sesame balls and put them on a red plate with a spotlight so they’ll
glow like “three golden nuggets,” symbolizing money, she advises.

We are greeted by
Lum with New Year “lucky candies” and learn about the customs as we walk
quickly to get out of the cold at the aromatic Jin Cheng Bakery.

A sampling of
treats includes cracked hardboiled eggs soaked in Chinese
tea, soya sauce and spices as well as variety of steamed buns, munchies and
Hong Kong tea.

We then visit a natural herb shop to sip New Year's fragrant tea
and nosh on dried snacks and afterwards joined crowds of pre-holiday shoppers
and diners in Toronto's "second" Chinatown, the Dundas-Spadina
neighbourhood.

Asian grandmas push
through the crowds to select the freshest ingredients at outdoor and crammed
specialty supermarkets. Families with children pick out special toys as treats
and stock up on traditional snacks.

Festive feasts
await as food shops with Chinese delicacies such as whole roasted pigs and
steamed chickens with their heads still attached, "paying tribute" to
the animal's life.

The aroma of warm
bakery products, spices and herbs, teas and a dim sum feast make this a
cultural journey that pleases all the senses.

“Lucky candies” are
given out as a Chinese New Year’s custom. (Shirley Lum photo)

There’s a trip through outdoor produce stands, a bustling food market and a
trading company with all kinds of Asian gifts and cooking products. Then we
sample pork sliced from a boar hanging in a window display at a meat shop.

Over lunch, Lum shows everyone how to use chopsticks and orders a
"harmonious blend" of the five Chinese meal elements – colour, aroma,
flavour, shape and texture.

There are chuckles
around the table as everyone reads out his or her fortune for the year ahead
from a Chinese animal horoscope book.

These gastronomic
tours throughout this month start at 10 a.m. and run for 3 1/2 hours.

Eat, drink, and be merry

This year Lum has
added a Lantern Festival Banquet on the 15th day of the first moon that formally
ends the New Year celebrations.

This nine-course
feast on Feb. 23 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. is at the Taste of China Seafood
Restaurant on Spadina Road.